Daily Signet
Continued contemplations on the Mahavidyas…
The Striking Force of Chinnamasta: This Mahavidya is portrayed as standing on a couple who lay in close embrace. She is stark naked, but robed in dazzling light. In form, she is headless, a trunk of a body with two arms held aloft. In one hand, she holds her own severed head and in the other, a pair of scissors. From her neck three streams of blood gush forth. The middle stream flows into her own mouth straight from the severed head she holds in her hand. Two attendants who stand by on either side drinking from the other two streams of blood. This is Chinnamasta.
From this description, Chinnamasta might seem an incomprehensible object of worship. She is an indomitable destructive power like Kali, but there is a difference between her action and Kali’s. Kali’s force is fierce and terrible, but Chinnamasta is even more so. Kali represents the power of transformation, the force of evolution in creation. Her action is strong and swift, but she still works with the aid of Time. Chinnamasta on the other hand, pays no attention to time, for she is the “Lord’s weapon”—the crash of thunder, the Vajra—she destroys instantaneously. Kali is vital force; Chinnamasta is electric energy. Kali’s seat is in the heart of things—power of strong emotion and quick action; Chinnamasta is in the head specifically, in the third eye. She is the power of will and vision, the power of lightning and electrical currents.
Chinnamasta is the mother of Parasurama who at the behest of his father (obviously displeased with the boy’s mother), cut her head off. But Parasurama, by virtue of a boon from his father who is pleased with his son’s unquestioning obedience, uses the boon, to his father’s displeasure, to bring his headless mother back to life. Chinnamasta comes back as the sole warrior, the force that is victorious over all that opposes it. She has the power to annihilate the mind, and then restore it as well. To worship her is to imagine a constant downpour of lightning from the skies and submit the body, mind and self to it in absolute dedication and surrender.
Teri H Martin
From the August High Service
O terrifying Chinnamasta,
She holds in her hand her own severed head,
three streams of blood fountain forth from her mouth,
Hers, the lessons of swift death, total surrender, ultimate sacrifice
Slashing power of Vajra, lightning flash and drum-ripping thunder
Shredding our blankets and blindfolds of ignorance.
Gutting us of our best answers, truest opinions, smug rightness.
Her boon: the bloody show of waters. Teri H Martin